This robo-lawyer could help you overturn your parking fines

A chatbot lawyer has successfully contested 160,000 parking tickets in the last year.

The DoNotPay bot, created by a British teenager, has been used by 250,000 people in London and New York to challenge parking fines. In 64 per cent of cases, the bot won the claim on behalf of its clients, adding up to around $4 million (£2.9m) of avoided fines.

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Billed as "the world's first robot lawyer," the free-to-use DoNotPay website guides users through the ticket challenging process by asking a series of simple questions. Parking fines can be invalid for multiple reasons, including the parking spot being too small or signage being unclear, and the website automatically generates an appeal baed on the user's selections.

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In the UK, if councils don't respond to a formal parking fine within 56 days the appellant wins by default, and the fine is dropped.

"I don't want the most vulnerable to have to pay half the cost of the ticket to defend themselves," Browder, who's now studying at Stanford University, said on Twitter. In the US, people contesting parking fines often have to pay lawyer's fees to bring the case to court.

It always brightens my day to receive these emails. I wish the local governments would just follow the rules pic.twitter.com/1gz6NjYSs3

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DoNotPay can also help with claiming money for delayed flights (in the EU), PPI claims and answering questions about the legality of killing badgers. Killing badgers is illegal in the UK, unless you've been issued with a badger-killing license from Natural England, the Welsh Government or the Countryside Council.

Browder has additionally created a system that lets HIV positive people prove they have told their sexual partners about their HIV status. The majority of states in the US have some form of legislation which makes it a criminal offence for people who are HIV positive not to disclose that fact to their sexual partners.

Browder's website lets users send a message to their sexual partners who then acknowledge receipt, and this confirmation can be added to the blockchain for a permanent anonymous record of acknowledgement.